The Unending Battle
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: Renji and Rukia have travelled to Hueco Mundo, joining Ichigo in his search for the kidnapped Orihime. But all is not well with Rukia's zanpakuto; a mysterious spirit lurks in her inner world, and those around her are beginning to notice something is amiss. Meanwhile, her skills and endurance will be tested to their limits in the depths of enemy territory.
1. The Gift

CHAPTER 1: THE GIFT

There was nothing to say, Rukia thought as she stepped out of the _senkaimon_ two paces ahead of her brother. Ukitake was not waiting for her; the guardians of the portal barely glanced in her direction, though they straightened and bowed from the waist to the captains. And so it was that, barely having set foot within the _sereitei, _she broke into a _shunpo _and left them all behind her. Drizzling rain had left puddles in the streets. She moved too quickly to be noticed by most of the citizens and those who could see her passing only assumed that she was about some urgent business. She reached the gates of the mansion, the rain having barely touched her hair, and called to the servants within, who, at her command, unlocked the gates. She ran over the glittering lawn.

It had been morning in the world of the living: a bright, clear morning. Here it was dusk and clouds the gold of corn husks obscured the horizon. She drew shut the doors to her quarters and stood panting. Only a day ago, she had shared this space with Orihime. They'd talked and laughed and worried about the future without ever realising that it was already upon them. With a snarl of anger, she tore the sword from her belt and slumped down on her divan with the _zanpakuto _cradled in her arms. Damn him. Damn him and damn the Old Man too. Nothing had changed. Byakuya claimed he wanted to protect her, but he didn't see how his actions burned her or how it was not her he protected, but his own honour. Damn him to hell.

"Rukia."

His voice was infuriatingly soft. He must have hastened after her, but not too much. He could easily have overtaken her had he wanted too. That he'd left her ten minutes' grace was almost irritating. "Join me for dinner." It wasn't a request. Nothing was ever a request, with him. He didn't open the screen door and she didn't move from the bed, but she did try to make her voice light:

"I hope _Nii-sama _will forgive me if I cannot attend."

"I must insist upon it."

"I am not well."

No answer came from his side of the door.

After a time, and when she was sure that he was gone, she set the sword aside and changed out of her uniform, choosing the plainest kimono she could find. No-one had told her she was off-duty, but nor had they said she was meant to be anywhere, with the obvious exception of dinner. Was it dinner time here? Probably, she thought idly. The banality of dressing and tying the _obi _in a complicated knot at her back left her feeling a little calmer, so that, when she opened the screen door, her mood only felt heavy, like the storm clouds gathering in the north.

Byakuya was standing to one side of the doorway, watching the sky. Nothing in his stance suggested he had been waiting and she might have believed that were it not for the fact that he'd have had to consciously conceal his presence to make her think he'd gone. She hesitated on the threshold. It had been a long time since his company had felt like a grindstone around her neck. Eventually, she compromised; polite but cold: "I am not hungry. Did you intend to wait for me all night?"

"Do you blame me for the girl's fate?" He sounded curious, but not regretful. Still, she started at the bluntness of the question and, despite herself, coloured. "Don't worry," he said hastily: "There is no need to answer that. She was a friend to you. I understand. You have few enough friends here." She looked away. That too, she realised, was not meant as a sleight. He was merely stating facts. No matter that she didn't want to hear them. "I cannot force you to eat. I wanted to discuss your earlier exchange with the Captain Commander, but, if you are not well, then you should probably rest. Were you tested in that last battle?" He finally turned towards her, away from the dark garden. His eyebrows arced up into a delicate question and it seemed to her that her cheeks coloured further. She had a sudden vivid memory of an _arrancar _preparing to decapitate her with a _cero _and wondered how well that might pass for small talk over their supper. Perhaps not:

"My energy was spent in healing Ichigo."

"You were not caught up in the fighting?"

"A small part only."

He made a soft sound in his throat that suggested he might have heard reports to the contrary. She sighed, looking around for a way out. It was times like this when she felt she didn't belong here. Her thoughts were unruly, running over all the things she wanted to say and couldn't, skipping back and forth between a stricken self awareness and a desire to tell him to leave. Given the intense quiet of the house they shared, she wondered that more of this place had not rubbed off on her. It was his house still; not hers. To impinge on his world was to tread heavily on something so delicate it might fracture at her touch. This strange quiet he seemed content to live in.

"I have something for you," he said suddenly, making her look up: "I was going to give it to you later, but – You will wait here, Rukia." He turned from her and strode away across the decking. Rukia stared after him. For a brief instant, she had thought she glimpsed uncertainty in his eyes.

She closed the door behind her and stepped out onto the decking. The weather was strange tonight; it was warm for the winter and the air seemed poised on the knife-edge of a storm, unreasonably still.

After a short time, Byakuya returned, carrying a pile of linen in his arms. At first, she thought there must be something wrapped in it, but then he handed her the whole bundle and she realised that the fabric, though it looked like rough linen, was, in fact, soft and fine to the touch. Something of this kind did not come cheap.

He had purchased items for her before, as gifts, and had even had some pieces made. She suspected he had the notion that women liked clothing. All women. All clothing. For all of his sophistication, he could not grasp certain subtleties of Rukia's taste and yet, this did not look like a fancy gown. It was unusual for him to give her gifts out of the blue too; usually, they would be presented as part of a formal occasion: a birthday or festival. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that this might be an act of contrition, in light of recent events, but that, too, would be strange. She shook it out. A cloak. The weave was fine though appearing coarse. It was otherwise completely plain. Even the clasp was sewn into the fabric, its design obscured. She frowned. "It's very cold," he said by way of explanation and she glanced around. She had just been thinking how mild their winter was this year. "In Hueco Mundo," he added, and her breath caught in her throat. He was staring at her, she realised. Waiting. But what could she say? The words wouldn't come straight. Then, of a sudden, as if to fill the silence, he knelt down, took the cloak from her unyielding hands and draped it around her shoulders, fastening it with the hidden clasp. Without meeting her eyes, he brushed out the creases. And she stood there, like a clothes shop dummy, letting him dress her. She stared at his hands as they smoothed down the fabric. "There," he said. When she looked up, he was frowning. "If it is of no use to you, it doesn't matter." He was lying, but she didn't understand why.

"They are sending us to Hueco Mundo?"

"I am sending you to Hueco Mundo," he said, straightening: "Along with my lieutenant."

She looked sideways at him. There was a possibility, a small possibility, that this was all a ruse and he had found a really very elaborate means of keeping her out of the way:

"The war effort" -

"A battle is fought on many fronts, Rukia. I am entrusting you with this. We will need the girl's healing powers and we will need the boy."

"Ichigo?" Her eyes widened.

"He intends to go to Hueco Mundo," Byakuya explained: "And I have no doubt that Urahara will find a means of facilitating his journey. He will be of no use to us if he gets himself killed. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"It is foolish to send a large force when the mission is merely one of retrieval, so it is just yourself and Abarai Renji. I trust you are able to work together."

"Yes."

"Good."

They had reverted to being soldiers again. She was standing with her hands straight at her sides and she half-expected him to turn on his heel now that they had come to some resolution. He didn't. He remained standing, a little in the shadows now. Though she knew it was impossible, he looked, for all the world, as if he were lost: as if he expected something from her. She fingered the fastening of the cloak idly. "Do you wish to keep it?" he asked and she looked up. "The cape?"

"Oh. It's just that I don't feel the cold," she said sadly. She began to loosen the catch.

He stood there, in the shadows. She didn't know why, but the effect of his eyes on her was to make her all fingers and thumbs over the delicate fastening, and she cursed softly as she tried to unclip it. By the time it was loose and she had begun to unwrap the material from her shoulders, she felt as if her ears were burning red under his gaze. It was a silly thing. He must have forgotten that she didn't get cold. Of course there was no real reason for him to know because his own _zanpakuto_ had no alignment to the elements in the way that hers was aligned to ice.

She folded the cloak up, then hesitated, her hands resting on the material that looked coarse, but was really fine, that seemed cheap, but was probably worth her own weight in gold. She didn't care for those things. She never had. She didn't like it when he spent money on her. Luxurious silk kimono, embroidered gowns for the summer, intricate filigree ornaments that she was meant to wear in her hair: those were the gifts she had become accustomed to. Now she stared at the plain bundle before her and it struck her suddenly that this was the first gift he had ever given her that was even practical. Of course, it wasn't. It wasn't practical at all. But he hadn't known that.

It was plain; it was practical. Not for a noblewoman, the sister of one of the most powerful men in Soul Society. But for a _shinigami _.

He'd reached out to take it back from her when she suddenly snatched it up to her chest, and he frowned:

"I thought you didn't want it."

"Why would you think that?" she asked, her throat so tight that it came out as little more than a squeak. "I like it!"

"Good," he said, in a voice that suggested her behaviour was baffling him but he had no intention of querying it. If he did think she'd gone mad, he didn't seem too bothered by it because he crossed out of the shadows to the edge of the decking and glanced up at the now moonless sky. She must have done something right because the tension had drained from him and his composure, in turn, rubbed off on her. She relaxed a little, no longer feeling the need to clutch her present with both hands. Unfolding it again, she tried to get a better look at it in the low light and, when she looked up again, he was watching her, his expression soft. She cleared her throat:

"_Nii-sama?"_

"Yes?"

"You're going against orders for this?"

His expression hardened:

"No. I am not."

"But you were meant to prevent us from entering Hueco Mundo, weren't you?"

"My orders were to return you to Soul Society. Nothing more and nothing less."

"Isn't that a technicality?"

"Yes, it is." This time, his smile did not touch his eyes. The effect was sinister and she decided not to press home her point. She bowed, a little lower than usual and he sighed. The conversation was over. By the time she had straightened, he had bid her good-night and turned away. She watched him now, his figure leaving overlapping shadows against the walls of the house as he passed beneath hanging lamps.

Forty years had passed since they'd met and he had barely changed at all. She saw small differences though: a gradual filling out of his features. He had seemed almost gaunt when she'd first seen and his eyes had looked always into the distance. Now they carried a searching quality, as if he was seeing things for the first time. Her, for a start. And did he smile more often than she remembered?

She went back into her own quarters and sat cross-legged on the divan, the new cloak spread out over her knees.

Hueco Mundo.

_Shinigami _did not go to Hueco Mundo. Like the hell dimension, it was out of bounds. It would be hostile, she knew: hostile in a way she had never encountered before. Frame it however she might, it seemed that she was genuinely being entrusted with something important. She sighed deeply. There was so much on her mind, from the nightmares that still prevented her from sleeping to her shambolic performance in the human world. It wasn't the best time to be taking on greater challenges, if she was honest, but it wasn't her place to pick and choose. These things rarely came to pass when it was convenient. She sighed and curled up on the divan, one hand still resting against her brother's gift.


	2. Reunion

CHAPTER 2: REUNION

It struck Rukia, as she watched Renji unpacking their gear on an empty tract of sand, that she was very lucky in many ways. She had managed to hold on to friends she didn't deserve. She had a family, of sorts, even if she spent most of her time running scared of Byakuya. Her work gave her a purpose and there were some things that, even in her long, long life, she had never expected to see. One of them was the arctic desert of Hueco Mundo.

It was cold. Byakuya had been right about that. It didn't bother her, but it made Renji crabby:

"Two weeks, comfortably," he said, examining their supplies with his thumbs hooked into his belt: "You planning on helping out at all or just sitting there looking at the view?"

"Just sitting here. Hey, Renji," she said: "You know, the air here; it's not so different from Soul Society."

"I guess not." He started to repack.

"If hollow need to consume human souls to survive, how do the smaller ones travel between worlds? I'd not have thought they'd have the power" –

"Well, those of us who did finish school recall that hollows can also consume one another. For example, a _menos grande _has to consume thousands of hollows, an _adjuchas _has to eat thousands of _menos grande _and a_ vasto lorde, _thousands of _adjuchas – _you see how that works?" He gave her a smug smile, and threw a small bag of supplies into her arms. She tested the weight, then slipped it over one shoulder and started to follow him:

"Then why bother with the humans at all?"

"How should I know? Maybe they're tastier." He grinned: "Hey, you're the human expert, aren't you?"

"Have you noticed that the moon hasn't moved in nearly half a day. It's been at that exact same point in the sky."

"So?"

"No dawn. It's just going to stay dark."

"Who cares? The moonlight's bright enough to see by."

"I know, but that's not the point."

"Do you have a point?" he asked, slowing down. When she met his eyes, they were sparkling with something like amusement.

"That it's strange. No daylight. No seasons. The stars are different too." He looked up: "You see, on earth and in Soul Society, you can see the same constellations. I know they're probably not the same stars exactly, but – what?" she asked. He was grinning again:

"Nothing. It's fine. You just notice weird shit." She fell quiet. All around them, the sand was white, like new snow. It seemed to go on forever, from one empty horizon to another, undulating between dunes that looked like creases in a silk ribbon. Now and again, they crossed the tracks of other living things, usually small, but, for the most part, only their footsteps disturbed the empty perfection. At her side, Renji chuckled: "I'm just trying to recall if you were always this curious or if Byakuya doesn't let you out enough. It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"What has?"

"Since it was just you and me."

Rukia didn't answer and the smile slowly faded from his face. She let her feet drag in the sand, sending up wavelets of fine white spray. There was a kind of uneasy truce between them at the moment. A lot of things had been said that perhaps should not have been, or might have been said differently. Either way, things might change in the future, when they'd both had time to consider everything. Right now, they didn't have that luxury. They just had each other. "Hey, hey, look! That's got to be Las Noches," said Renji suddenly. When she looked up, he was pointing towards the horizon. In the far distance, she could see something that appeared to be a vast metallic dome, marring the otherwise unbroken line of white sand. They both stopped. A strong wind snatched at their hair and cloaks as they stared out across the wastes, trying to ascertain distances and scale.

Then Rukia gasped and her hand went to her chest. For an instant, her world had lurched. Renji glanced towards her:

"What was that?"

"I don't know." It felt as if someone had grabbed at her spiritual pressure and tugged it. That was, of course, impossible; impossible, but not imagined: Renji had felt it too. She wondered how it had seemed to him. He was staring at her warily:

"I know this is a big thing for you," he said, starting down the face of the sand dune they had just climbed. She followed. "I mean, you've only been to the world of the living – what – twice? And now we're in a place that few _shinigami _have ever visited."

"So?"

"So it's okay to be scared."

"I'm not scared," she objected.

"All I'm saying is that, if you were, that'd be cool."

"Shut up, Idiot."

"It's a good job you've got a big, strong guy like me to" –

The earth ruptured. Suddenly, it felt as if someone had taken a hold of the landscape and shaken it out like a rumpled cloth. The resultant ripple that chased through the dunes knocked them both off their feet and Rukia landed hard on her backside. When she had presence of mind to glance around, Renji was already up on his knees, one hand on his sword: "What was that?" he cried. Rukia sat up:

"I don't know!"

"I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this place. Damn, where the hell are our supplies?"

"I have mine. You were carrying the rest!" They both glanced around the barren sand-field and she gave an exaggerated sigh. "You must have put them down. We'll have to go back."

"No, I had them! I just dropped them a moment ago!"

"Are you asking me to believe that the sand just ate our supplies?" she asked laconically, as she brushed herself followed a silence in which they both gave this serious consideration.

"I think we should proceed," said Renji, in solemn tones: "With caution."

"Thank goodness you're here to guide me. I'd be lost without you."

"Oh sure! As if you have any clue what that was!"

If she did though, she never got the chance to tell him because a tide of spiritual pressure ripped across the landscape and, over to their right, a series of explosions rent the horizon. Renji had dropped into a low stance as if believing they were under attack. Rukia ran past him:

"That's Ichigo!"

"Yeah, but Rukia, something's wrong!" He might have said more had she not broken into flash-step, forcing him to follow her.

They emerged from _shunpo _perhaps a hundred yards from the centre of the energy storm and were, at once, caught in the furore of Ichigo's _reiatsu. _It rolled out across the landscape like a hurricane, carrying waves of sand and debris, so that even the ground on which they stood felt like an ever-changing tide Still jogging, Rukia tugged the cloak she wore up over her nose and mouth. She would have liked to have been able to cover her eyes too, as they were already stinging with grit and sand and it becoming harder to see. Still, Byakuya's gift did have a use, it seemed. Renji put one hand on her shoulder and leant in close as they ran, so that he could be heard above the white noise of spirit energy: "He's different here. You feel that?"

"He's stronger," she muttered, trusting that he would hear her. His eyes flicked towards her and they both knew what he was thinking. Stronger was one way of putting it. The energy was so much darker than anything she had ever sensed before from the human boy.

They crested the next dune and gazed down at a scene that inspired both awe and dread because the desert itself had come to life; it had grown a torso, arms and a gnarled head that towered some hundred feet above the sands. Like a wood-cut of an ancient sea-god, it strode waist-deep through the landscape, its monstrous arms grasping at the ant-like figures who fled before it. She could see Ichigo, his black _shihakusho _a ripple on the white sand. As she watched, he whirled, faced the monster and slashed his sword downwards. His _reiatsu _surged outwards in a crisp line of black lightning that exploded as it struck the demon, carving it into a thousand pieces. Had his _reiatsu _always been black, she wondered. No, it had once been blue, pale blue, like the light that streamed out of a _senkaimon. _When had it changed?

There was no time to think on such things though because, as she watched, the demon began to reform: its body unfolding from the sand, bearing up the weight of a grotesque hollow mask: a grinning human skull with curling horns and a beard formed by streams of sand pouring endlessly down its front. "It is a hollow, isn't it?" asked Renji.

"Must be." But it was formed of the sand itself, which meant that no amount of force or energy could destroy it. It would simply regenerate from the landscape, and there was no shortage of sand here. She drew her sword:

"Sode no Shirayuki." And she touched the tip to the ground in front of her, feeling the power spreading through her body like cold light; the blade, changing and lengthening in her hands. A ribbon unfurled from the hilt and spiralled around her as if it could form a ward against the barrage of static pummelling the landscape. "_Tsugi no mai. Hakuren." _Yet, even as she gave the incantation, the ribbon rode upwards on the draught of her own spiritual energy and a wave of churning ice surged out over the dunes.

It engulfed the hollow where it stood, freezing it, arms raised in a gesture of eternal wrath. But Rukia was only partially aware that her assault had been effective. She was staring down at the blade she held. For an instant, she had felt terror. Indescribable terror. But it had not been her own. "Sode no Shirayuki," she whispered, but, even as she watched, the beautiful white sword dulled and reformed of its own accord into a plain katana with a red-bound hilt. Renji was watching her, but it was obvious from his puzzled expression that he thought she'd returned her sword to its original form on purpose. She glanced down into the valley before them where Ichigo and his companions had ceased their flight and were staring up at the giant ice statue. Renji returned his _zanpakuto _to his sheath and relaxed a little:

"Nicely done. Looks like that got their attention."

As she watched, Ichigo broke off from the little party and ran to meet them. Having discarded his powers for now, his _bankai _blade had assumed its usual form, bound to his back by white cloth and a red chain. His progress up the slope towards them was as delightfully awkward as that of any city-dwelling teenager who had just been challenged to sprint up a sand-dune. Behind the cloak that covered her mouth, Rukia smiled. He was grinning and panting when he reached her:

"Renji! Rukia! You came!"

It was both endearing and irritating that he made it sound as if they'd turned up unexpectedly for a tea party rather than the truth, which was that they had risked charges of insubordination_,_ while crossing worlds into hostile territories where there was every possibility that they would both get killed. But endearing and irritating was fine. She'd expected nothing less.

"Of course we came!" she said, snatching the cloak down from her face, and she punctuated the statement with a sucker punch to his jaw.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Why didn't you wait for us? You knew we'd come, didn't you? We're your friends, Ichigo!"

He looked slightly baffled by the statement, but now she did smile, and his face lit up at that. He stumbled slightly as he turned back to the strange scene behind him:

"I guess you are. You'd better come down and meet the others then."


	3. Waifs and Strays

CHAPTER 3: WAIFS AND STRAYS

They were a disparate group: three humans, two _shinigami _and, to Rukia's initial consternation, four hollow. Rukia's experiences with hollow were fairly limited to kill or be-killed. _Gillian-class _hollow, the demons with which she was most familiar, were animalistic and lacking in intelligence. Some were barely sentient. She had learnt though, that the more highly evolved they became, the closer they were to human levels of consciousness. The four who travelled with Ichigo showed varying degrees of self-awareness, but by far the most puzzling amongst them was a human-like child, which went by the name of Nel. If her appearance was anything to go by, she was about four years old. Her hair was pale blue, hacked short: no doubt, by one of her comrades. Atop her head, a cracked and partial hollow mask rested, taming clumps of her hair and framing a wild and smiling face. Ichigo had saved her from the sand monster, she claimed. Rukia didn't doubt it. That was usually the way that Ichigo picked up waifs and strays. No-one else seemed too troubled by the fact that they were now travelling with something that was clearly a miniature _arrancar, _for nothing else could explain the human-like appearance of the small girl or the broken mask. The three other hollows were her companions, or subordinates. One was tall and bipedal with an unbroken rodent-like skull; a second looked as if it had been fashioned entirely from a giant potato chip of yellow bone with two legs grafted onto its base. Both of these, she judged to be ordinary _gillian, _capable of communication, even conversation, but largely limited by their evolution. The third was the basest of them and it was treated as a pet by the other two: it resembled a giant eel, and it was this one that had proved the most useful since Nel had been only too pleased to show them how it was possible to ride the creature over the sands towards Aizen's base, las Noches.

These three hollow would take no action unless they were ordered to do so by Nel. It was a topsy-turvy hierarchy: three powerful demons controlled and coddled by a small child. At first, Rukia was uncomfortable in their presence, but, as time went on, she became accustomed to their eccentricities. Nel doted on Ichigo. So long as he was well, nothing else in the world seemed to matter to her, and so it seemed, they were safe for now. It occurred to Rukia that, abandoned in the wasteland of Hueco Mundo, there was every possibility that she was, in fact, a failed experiement of Sosuke Aizen's.

A few nights into their journey, Renji called Rukia aside:

"Should we kill her?" he asked.

They were a little distance from the camp where Chad and Uryu were engaged in cooking them all some tea. Ichigo was sitting, cross-legged, beside the fire, the little _arrancar _crawling over his lap. Now and again, she tugged experimentally at the strap of his sword. He was talking to Uryu, but, suddenly deciding she wasn''t getting enough attention, Nel reached up and pulled a tuft of his orange hair, eliciting a cry of pain. She grinned toothlessly.

"Seems like a kid to me," said Rukia.

"That doesn't change the facts though, does it. I mean, we're _shinigami; _she's a hollow."

"Do you want to kill her?"

"No. I just thought" –

"You want me to kill her?"

"Well, I can't kill a child, and you're a woman, so I thought" –

"You realise how wrong that is, on so many levels, right?" she asked. He gave her a blythe smile and she withered it with a glance.

"Are you taking watch tonight, Rukia?"

"Can do."

She watched as Ichigo caught the little _arrancar _by her ankles and turned her upside down, shaking her gently. Nel squealed with delight and burst into a torrent of giggles.

"Speaking of kids," said Renji: "He seems like a natural, doesn't he?"

"Ichigo?" She stiffened and glanced over to see if he was mocking her somehow. It didn't seem so: "I guess so. He has a family."

"Isn't he a bit young?"

"What? No, you oaf, he has sisters."

"You're blushing. Did you know that? You're cute when you blush."

"Go and die somewhere, Renji."

"Someday, maybe. Not tonight." He leant back. The sky was full of strange constellations. They were both thoughtful for a time.

"You think he can have kids?" she asked at last: "Now that he's a _shinigami? _I mean, what would that make them?"

"Little pains in the arse," he said. When she didn't respond though, he sat forward: "Where do you even find the time to worry about this stuff? We just have to get to the end of tomorrow without getting killed. That's all that matters. It's all that has ever mattered, since we were kids. Hey" – he touched her arm – "Look over there, right? That's the edge of the slums where we grew up." He pointed to a blank point on the horizon and she stared. "And that's the path that wound up to the barn where we hung out. I guess that fell into ruin years ago. But Inuzuri's still there: the alley that went all the way out of Seventy-Eighth and down to the docks without passing any checkpoints. Do you remember that? And they used to set up the market, right there." He pointed. She could see everything he was describing in her mind's eye. Their childhood domain had been the rooftops of Inuzuri and its dilapidated alleyways. It was all still there, safe in her memory. "And we're here too," he said: "Against the odds."

She leant up against his arm. It felt like something solid in a rapidly-shifting world. He was right; it was comforting to think that some things simply could not change.

"I need you to promise me something," she said softly and he stiffened.

"Uh-uh. Tell me what it is. Then get to the bit where I promise." His voice was gruff. Her eyes pleaded with him from the level of his shoulder. "Don't give me that look."

"There's something I have to do and you have to promise you're not going to stop me." He narrowed his eyes:

"No. I don't think so."

"Renji, it's important."

"I don't make promises I can't keep."

"Please. I want to do things right this time." Her voice was soft and sincere. Her unblinking eyes bored into him and he wondered how he was meant to do anything in light of their depth and colour. She had the uncanny ability to drain his willpower until he was rendered powerless. In fact, he might have sworn it was some kind of _kido _she was using on him.

"Alright," he said after a time: "So what is it?"

And then she smiled, which was, after all, the point of all things. "What are you gonna do, Rukia?" he asked as she unfolded from his side and started down the gentle slope towards the campfire. He had fallen in love with her for the courage she carried with her sometimes. She needed no ornament: silver and gold would tarnish in light of that conviction. When she had her heart set on something, it would burn you as surely as any fire. It was a rare thing to find in anyone. "Fine, don't tell me!" he called after her, and he realised he was grinning, not because he wasn't worried, but because she wasn't. "Stubborn bitch," he muttered and looked around as if he might find somebody to share his jubilation with. There was no-one. He settled back in the sand with a grunt of satisfaction: "Guess I'm taking watch then."


	4. The Forest of Menos

CHAPTER 4: THE FOREST OF MENOS

Every day, the metal dome that dominated the horizon grew minutely; every night, they took turns in keeping watch and, when she slept, Rukia did not dream. During the hours that passed for daytime in this world of eternal night, they rode on the eel that Nel called Bawabawa, moving at a fairer pace than any they might have achieved on foot.

"Who is Rukia?" asked Nel one day. She was seated in Ichigo's lap, as was her habit nowadays, and Rukia was riding at the front of the snake-like demon. She didn't turn round as the little _arrancar _asked him: "Who is she to you?"

"We're friends," Ichigo said and Rukia glanced back over her shoulder at him then and smiled: good answer. Safe answer.

And then the world gave way.

The only warning they had was Bawabawa's howl as the ground in front of them crumbled and cascades of sand resolved themselves into the muscled torso of the same vast god that they had defeated four days previously. Except, it seemed, they had not defeated it. Rukia was on her feet:

"_Mai, Sode no Shirayuki. Tsugi no mai. Hakuren." _She touched the tip of the katana to the ground at her feet. Save, this time, it wasn't the ground.

"No!" screamed Nel. "You'll hurt Bawabawa!"

The serpent reared up. Rukia tried to find purchase on its smooth sides, staring in shock at the sword in her hand. Her _zanpakuto _had not answered the incantation.

Staring down over the side of the beast, she saw something even more troubling. They were being lifted. The ground was dropping away beneath them. But wait. No. She was wrong. They were not the ones who were rising. Instead, the desert, now hundreds of metres beneath them, was falling away. The sand-god grinned, its white teeth like grave-markers, as it observed their their fate.

Bawabawa's whole body began to tilt. Rukia resheathed her blade and clung on with both hands, checking behind her to be sure that everyone else was still there. They were, but she wished she'd not looked. A vortex had opened in the desert floor. The sands were spinning, drawing everything towards a maw at its centre. She could feel the spiritual currents that had whipped the landcape into motion. She tried to move, but even the slightest motion made her grip the more precarious and Bawabawa's body was undulating beneath her as the eel tried to wriggle back to safety, away from the expanding whirlpool. As its motions grew more frantic, so her hands began to slip:

"No, Bawabawa!" But the next powerful spasm shook her loose. And, all at once, there was no above and no below.

The sands pummelled her. This would be what it was to drown. Her nose and mouth filled with dust. As fast as she breathed, her throat became clogged again. A current of spiritual energy carved across her body, forcing her to bend double. Another struck her back and she was flung across an immeasurable space only to come up against some form of barrier, which forced her back again into the spiralling sands. One leg, then her arms, then her shoulders and her head, broke the surface. She took a desperate, rasping breath, and hung in space.

It was dark; it was vast. There was a wind at the back and, by the time she knew she was falling, it was already too late. Something struck her from behind, between the shoulder blades. There was pain, like a brief burst of sunlight. And then there was nothing more.

* * *

She was lying on her back. That much she knew. Her body ached and, although rocks and gravel were digging into her back and shoulders, she found the stone floor on which she lay to be unreasonably comfortable. In fact, she thought distantly, she had no inclination to move ever again. And she might have stayed there were the pain in the base of her skull not a single, ferocious star, forcing her out from the darkness. A cool, damp breeze blew across her face and she cracked open one eye to glance around. It was a cavern. Half-buried by sand and rubble, she appeared to be lying at the base of a vast stone column: one of many, stretching away into a blurred dark. Their tips seemed to be shrouded in a black, dusty substance that, against all the odds, hung in the air; their bases were flared like the roots of trees. A forest.

She tried to stand and her vision swam.

This was Hueco Mundo, wasn't it? As she picked her way precariously through the rubble, her memories began to surface, like cracks across a pane of black glass. She hadn't been alone: "Ichigo! Renji?" No-one answered her. At any other time, she could have sensed their _reiatsu, _but not now. Her head was pounding. She had a sense of the space around her closing in and hesitated in her meandering journey across the base of the cavern. Not alone. Not even slightly.

The first hollow came out of the shadows in front of her. She acted without thinking, ignoring the ache in her head and a new agony that coursed up her left arm as she drew the sword. The motions were no different from the hours she'd spent in training. Cut across. Cut down. The hollow eveaporated in a fountain of blue sparks that streamed towards the ceiling, briefly turning the hanging dust into a galaxy of spiralling stars. Another attacked from her right. She had the presence of mind to realise she couldn't use her left arm. The hollow gored itself on her blade. Another waited behind it. But there was no time to face that one. Holding the sword with just her right now, she whirled and slashed down through another that had come for her back. Before the demon disintegrated, her toes found purchase on its shoulder, and she finished off another behind it, then turned back to the one that had not yet attacked. Eyes glowed in the darkness. There were more. She couldn't count them and her head swum as she tried to turn and keep her attention everywhere at once.

"_Sode no Shirayuki. Some no mai. Tsuki shiro." _Please.

The white energy blazed within her and, for an instant, there was no pain; there was only a sense of her sword spirit all around her and an overwhelming relief as she stepped backwards, out of the circle she had drawn. The ground frosted. Within seconds, a column of ice consumed a half dozen hollows. She whirled and used the same technique to her right. Within the dance, at least, the pain was a distant thing. _Tsuki shiro _cleared a path ahead for her and, far away, on a black horizon, she could see light.

Moonlight. She started to sprint.

The cavern narrowed dramatically. Head down, she was running for her life, the ribbon of her released sword fluttering behind her. Were they following? She couldn't see. She knew only that she had finally reached the light. And it was not the moon.

A sudden sense of depth made her skid to a halt. Loose stones careened away from her into a tumultuous space ahead. She had emerged from a tunnel and was on a ledge in an even greater cavern than before. The scale of this place, which had seemed immeasurable, now defied all conception. A long dark fell away from her: sheer black, only inches from where she had stopped. Another emptiness. She looked up at the light and it looked back at her from the eyes of hundreds upon hundreds of _menos grande._ Products of a naïve mind, their bodies were simple black cylinders surmounted by hollow masks, child-like in their simplicity. There was something about their sharp noses and those mouths, open in eternal expressions of surprise, that made them more disturbing than the fierce beast-like masks of the _adjuchas_. Still more of the tall ghosts glided into view. The light came from their eyes, which burned yellow. And now, as they turned towards her, there was no mistaking the sickening whine as, en masse, they gathered their spiritual pressures. _"Cero," _she whispered. As she turned to run back the way she had come, the fragile ledge on which she had stood crumbled. She fell. The last thing she saw was the red light of their _reiatsu, _coalescing into a crimson sphere.

And then someone caught her.

* * *

Initially, she was too shocked and relieved to pay too much heed to who or what had plucked her from her fate. She was having difficulty sensing their _reiatsu, _but, right now, anything more than staying conscious felt like an indulgence. His grip on her was awkward though. One arm passed across her chest and he was crushing her against his side. It was true that not everyone could be as adept at carrying women under one arm as Ichigo, but this felt almost like a restraint. Her left arm was causing her considerable discomfort; it was all she could do to hold on to Sode no Shirayuki with the other. The sword's ribbon was fluttering wildly in the air behind them like an unruly pennant. As they flew from one vast stone tree to the next, Rukia tried desperately to fix her still muddy thoughts on what was happening to her.

From what she could glimpse of her saviour, he looked like a cross between a _shinigami _and a hollow. Yet she could see his feet if she tilted her head to the right, and they were human. Human feet; a black _shihakusho. _She glanced upwards: a mane of matted brown fur, and a long-snouted mask for a face. None of these things frightened her. This creature had saved her life. "Excuse me?" she asked politely. It continued to spring from stone branch to stone branch, no doubt using _reiatsu _to achieve something like flight. "Sir?" A little experimental wriggling confirmed that it wasn't about to give up its prize without a struggle. "Who are you?" she demanded, putting a little more force behind her voice: "What's your rank? What's your division?"

When there was still no reaction, she waited until they reached the next branch, then, with what was left of her strength, cut towards the stranger with Sode no Shirayuki. It was forced to drop her or risk losing an arm. A human arm, she noticed. Was it possible then that all the rest of its get up was no more than a costume?

Not that it mattered now, she thought, because it had vanished, leaving her crouched on a stone branch hundreds of metres above the cavern flaw. "We're done," she told Sode No Shirayuki and she felt the sword return to its usual form before she resheathed it, wincing as she held the _saya _with her left hand. She was almost certain now that she'd broken that arm in the fall. "Thanks," she said, wondering if her rescuer could hear her: "I appreciate what you did for me, but, from here on out, I think I'm going to do this alone."

She cried out with shock and pain as something heavy barrelled into her from behind and, once again, lifted her off her feet. Crushed again between the body and arm of her would-be kidnapper, she realised, with chagrin, that he had learnt from his mistakes and was no longer affording her the use of her arms. She might not have minded so much save that the sudden pressure on her injuries was enough to make her whimper: "Where are you taking me?" she cried, letting the pain thicken her voice: "Answer me!"

It let her go.

She collapsed forwards onto her knees on a plane of stone. Dark clouds of colour swam before her eyes. A bad time to pass out, she thought to herself, but several deep breaths seems to pull her back into the present. She was on another ledge, not the branch of a tree, but a path cut into the side of a cliff-face, and, directly ahead of her, carved out of the rock: a doorway. Her kidnapper ducked inside.

She could try to run away, but he was faster than her and stronger too, so, after a moment, she stood up and followed him into the cave.

The floor was flat. The walls had been chiselled until they were smooth and, to one side, a stone niche covered in blankets and furs looked as if it served as a bed of sorts. A pale green light burned merrily on the ceiling. It was, she realised with some surprise, a home. Not a dungeon or a lair.

Somebody's home.

She crossed to the centre of the room and gazed up at the light, while her kidnapper untied the fur cape from his shoulders and dropped it onto the bed. He suddenly looked much more like a _shinigami. _She could see the white _juban _beneath his kimono and even the strap that held the hollow mask over his face. Then there was that light: "Is this _kido?" _she asked. He didn't answer. "Who are you? Which division do you belong to?" She could feel her patience starting to wane: "Did you leave your division? Are you the kind of scum who deserts their own men?"

"My name is Ashido Kano. What's yours?"

"Kuchiki Rukia."

"Prepare yourself then, Kuchiki Rukia." He drew his blade and lunged at her.

She grunted as his first blow struck Shirayuki, almost knocking the _zanpakuto _from her hand. She didn't recall drawing, but, mercifully, her reflexes were faster than her mind. His next blow was swift and heavy and she staggered. Fighting one-handed was not her forte:

"Did you just bring me here to kill me?" she stammered. She tried to duck under his arm, but he was too fast. Unable to catch her, he slammed the hilt into her belly with such force that it knocked her the length of the room. And she lay, gagging, as he crossed slowly towards her:

"Are you finished already, Kuchiki Rukia?"


End file.
